Best classical concerts: Beethoven, Verdi and Vilde Frang

WEDNESDAY 20 

Roll Over Beethoven
NCH, Dublin 8pm €12-€39.50 nch.ie
Chuck Berry selling Beethoven? That's exactly what the RTÉ Concert Orchestra is up to. Not that a programme of the overture to Fidelio, the Violin Concerto and the Fifth Symphony should be particularly hard to sell. The violin soloist is Brazilian Luiz Filip, a member of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. Neil Thomson conducts.

Quartetto di Venezia
St Joseph's Church, Presentation Road, Galway 8pm €20/€18/€6 musicforgalway.ie; also Thurs, Dublin
Verdi wrote his first piece of chamber music, his String Quartet in E minor, at the height of his powers, in 1873, composing it, he said, "in the hours when I had nothing to do". He also said, "I don't know whether it is beautiful or ugly. I only know that it is a quartet," foreseeing, perhaps, that it might have trouble making its way in the world. It's a rarely heard work that will feature in the mostly Italian offerings of Quartetto di Venezia's concerts in Galway and Dublin. Also on offer are Boccherini's Quartet in D, G234, Mozart's Quartet in D, K499, and Gian Francesco Malipiero's Quartet No 1 (Rispetti e Strambotti) – the subtitle refers to early forms of Italian poetry.

FRIDAY 22

RTÉ NSO/Cristian Macelaru
NCH, Dublin 7.30pm €15-€38.50 nch.ie
Norwegian violinist Vilde Frang's Dublin debut is in Stravinsky's 1931, neoclassical Violin Concerto as part of an all-Russian programme with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra. Frang is one of the nimblest violinists around and her light-touch articulation can be expected to serve her well in this highly athletic work. The concert, which is conducted by Cristian Macelaru, opens with Rimsky-Korsakov's Russian Easter Festival Overture and ends with Tchaikovsky's Byronic Manfred Symphony.